Do we underestimate our brands' most loyal consumers? Of course, I am not referring to their intelligence, but to their creativity and passion for the brand. Today's question is this--who can sell your brand better, the person you've hired to sell it or the person who has used the product for most of his life? And if peer-to-peer is as powerful a mechanism for your brand as research indicates, should your consumers create your video advertising?

I know. I know. Too much has already been written about the Google/YouTube deal--from the jokes on late night TV to Mark Cuban's firestorm ("only a moron would buy YouTube") to fears of a fire hose of copyright suits to breathless recounting of the numbers. But, aside from all the hype, it's important to understand how the deal impacts the online video advertising industry.

There's a new energy in television today--perhaps even the emergence of a new era. Or maybe it's just simple desperation that is bringing better content to the fore, as the industry faces the new challenge of technology fragmentation, with new digital media devices ushering in portable viewing, VOD, and out-of-home viewing experiences.

So, what is the next evolution of online video? That depends on the creative agencies. It is creative shops that drive our innovation. They challenge technology vendors to push the limits and make their creative visions become a reality. Whether they are developing greenscreen video editing or figuring out how to make a 5 MB video game work within a microsite banner, they are driving us to new innovative heights.